"I like to remember things my own way. How I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened." These are the notorious words of Bill Pullman in a key moment of Lost Highway, and these are the words I live by every single minute on this planet. So I choose to recall 2018 as a good one, even though it was objectively a bitch. At least, it had some really special moments and a few amazing records to boot, so never mind the bollocks, here's the Top 10.

07 December 2018

Sujud opens with a guttural incantation that repeats 666 times "Tanggalkan Di Dunia" which means UNDO THE WORLD in Indonesian. I shouldn't have to say more, but some of you are really picky, so I'll try to elaborate, as much as my deep knowledge and penetrative expertise of Indonesian psychedelic avant doom allows.
Senyawa are a duo that share the ingeniosity of Corrupted at their prime, the sheer volume of early Swans, the exorcist blues of Phurpa and the psych folk mantras of Alexander Tucker if he was born in Yogyakarta, via a love for overamplified self-built stringed instruments with their own wtfness. You just can't believe that there are actually only two dudes behind this wall of Sleep (as in the band, not the act I wanna commit myself to, while I listen to anything SunnO))) released after their Black album) until you check their pic on the album's back cover, chillin' like a villain, instead of eating babies or doing ritual shizz in the name of an unpronounceable deity that urges you to listen to this like now.

The full unreleased audio travelogue of field recordist and ethnomusicologist, Deben Bhattacharya, is a glimpse into the parallel, unknown past of 1955. Listening to it, you can imagine what would have happened to modern music, if Paris To Calcutta was handed to the beat generation along with Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music. A highlight of this or any other year.

I've read on the usual forums and mailorders that The Older Generation slays, but I didn't expect it to slay so fucking much. Once you put the stylus on the record, a huge crackling sound emerges, as though the needle were dragging across a closely-miked molten asphalt. Every single second, this self-replicating pitch black miasma, exposes details -not unlike a HNW creation- that your detached listening habits won't reveal easily. Meanwhile, Wince left behind some bursts of sudden activity, be it a buried vocal or a static that manages to go out of the murk, to confuse us even more, so a state of deep listening is required, even though you'll want to scream Eureka on top of your lungs. A solid slab of headcleaning.

20 October 2018

After a few releases on high estimated labels, Ester Kärkkäinen's first full-length sounds exactly like its title. Sharp, gritty and to the point.
Her sound is a hybrid of unhinged power electronics blended with a post-mortem stench, including minimal layering, throbbing synths and obsessive loops. The heavily flanged vocals, interwined into the rotting fabric of the music, are spliced into chunks of indecipherable murmurs and visceral shrieks. Don't make a mistake though and think of Himukalt as another clone of the usual PE terrorists. This is a strictly personal and original statement, a detailed depiction of self-loathing, as Kärkkäinen is mapping her psyche in front of us, channeling her negativity into an impressive album.

Mandy is a psychedelic eye candy, with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, like a moving heavy metal album cover, full of gore, hand-crafted axes and satanic drugs. So, that means the music is a fist-pumpin', beer-chuggin' riff rock anthology? Fortunately, no. I wouldn't stand a second in front of another self aware b-movie with "ironic" tunes. Fuck that shit.

Jóhannsson's posthumous soundtrack subverted the expectations which come naturally if you think about the whole art-house horror box that Mandy fits perfectly in, and escaped from all the unavoidable tropes, even if he used the mandatory synth melody on the only sentimental scene of the film, or the metal drone of Stephen O' Malley, whose appearance verges on self-deprecation. This soundtrack singlehandedly elevates the movie from an Evil Dead on drugs parody into a world that you need to experience.

Masahiko Okubo was born 35 years too late, cause 33 Purgatories sounds exactly like the tape you would buy from a nasty xeroxed mailorder catalogue and then pray to Santa Postal Service for two months straight. Linekraft excels in the forgotten art of old school industrial, taking cues from Grim and Dissecting Table with a slight detour towards the rhythmic end of Greater Than One, on the almost danceable Mutant Embryo. Nowadays this sound is almost extinct, so 33 Purgatories is a thing to cherish.

27 August 2018

Life In A Peaceful New World has a cult following because of its unusual approach to the noise of the Rising Sun, back in '96. Fimiyuki Nagura steered away from the hi-end Japanoise of his time, to craft a bassy assault, more primal than a Homo Erectus seizure. You can call it proto-HNW, but I wouldn't call the original tape influential by any stretch of my imagination, due to its tiny edition of 50 copies, so here it is, in a slightly bigger CD edition, with a glossy digipack and the works.

A juxtaposition of concentrated rage and catatonic piano segments with classically trained vocals, full of bitterness and spite. This is the audio equivalent of I Spit On Your Grave with biblical overtones.

Steven Stapleton and co. pay tribute to Ur-document of industrial culture, by remixing it like every sane man would do. With religious reverence. Changez Les Blockeurs knows a priori that you can't improve the original album, so it takes a peak inside the legendary shed of the the Rupenus bros to worship every single squeak of it.

It's been ages since the last Organum album, that's why my excitement will be more than evident. Raven sounds like the last vestiges of life. It takes place within an empty but eerie setting that borders on the funereal, with a minuscule palette of decayed sounds. At first, this emptiness will be unsettling and your mind will try to fill the gaps of silence with the ambience of your space. As the record progresses, you will find yourself surrendered to this absence of sound, not worrying about the futile concepts of definitive beginnings and conclusive ends.

Anastasia Ax, a performance artist whose work evokes the spirit of actionism, meets the almighty Lasse Marhaug for the slow-burning fulfilment of the titular promise. Apparently, some objects are destroyed through some proper metal bashing, but the tape catches some subtle nuances that differentiates this badassery from your run-of-the-mill junk metal torture. You can almost hear the room's dimensions along with heavy breathing, shrieks, laughter, cries and of course the controlled feedback. That's why we're here for anyway.

You might have heard of the Bren't Lewiis Ensemble as members of the Butte County Free Music Society -a collective that gave voice to pranksters, weirdos and anti-musicians in the early 80s until now- but you certainly do know them as the vehicle of Seymour Glass, the publisher of Bananafish, the magazine that sheltered every obscure music that mattered in the DIY infrastructure. So, there's a method behind the ostensible randomness of their latest tape. I think. You can't be sure about anything that comes out of these guys.
Who cares about facts anyway? As long as this dadaist jam of surreal spoken word, reel-to-reel awkwardness, scratchy samples of wtfuckness, found sounds, readymade informecials and homemade electroacoustic non-sense exists, I don't. Highest possible recommendation to everyone who has loved Prick Decay and adored Smegma. And everything in between.

I had no idea about Worth or his releases for that matter, so I was caught off guard by this immense CD-R. Blood Possessed is a no bullshit, hate-filled phenomenon that involves some of the most intense moments in recent harsh noise purity, with a bludgeoning brutality that you can only find in the veteran section of the genre. Each individual sound has been layered, but not processed beyond recognition, so you can actually hear what lies beyond this solid cacophony. I swear this shit's gonna get better with every spin.

Corrupted rise from their ashes with the first 12" of the Hollow trilogy that will be concluded later. This time, the band chooses to explore further the dark ambient territory of Llenandose De Gusanos, that is playable both on 33 and 45 rpm. The former setting exhibits the droney side of things, with a seething sense of dread, while the latter instigates from the thick molasses of sound bursts of glorious noise, until they're suppressed again by the ominous hum.

Ideal Recordings provides us a huge public service by reissuing Riot, one of the very first examples of pure Noise assault. After his self-imposed exile on Japan back in 1984, John Duncan envisioned this record as an unbearable piece of music, a deliberate attack on the listener, but despite his effort to make something that ugly, Riot ironically became a key ingredient in the evolution of Japanoise as we know it. Behind the wall of static and shortwave randomness, you can trace a rich tapestry of metallic textures and a keen sense of physicality. The Black Sabbath sample is just a bonus.

After a couple of tape releases on Obsessive Fundamental Realism and Hiisi Productions, this anonymous Finnish project makes its official debut on Freak Animal. Grease District has everything you need from your harsh noise, be it the crunchy low end, the balls out attack or the angular turns. The few industrial touches are more than welcome, like the tight last track with its rhythmical hammering in front of the brutal soundstage and the lost-in-somewhere vocal snippets. More like this please.

I expected way more from this collaboration, but that doesn't mean that The Weight Of History is bad in any way. It's just too safe for its own good. Still, an Εno/Shields 12" is better that no Eno/Shields 12", so here it is.

Ultra lo-fi field recordings of Voodoo practices from the polymath Maya Deren. If you ever wondered how the fuck Brian Eno went polyrhythmic on our asses with Fear Of Music/Remain In Light, well, this is your chance. Of course, you can't have an all persons fictitious disclaimer. William Bennett based his whole Cut Hands shtick on this record.

Patrick O'Neil and co. brought Skin Crime back to life after a long hiatus which involved two side projects, a live appearance at the Hospital Productions' 20 years festival and a huge box set that I'll buy as soon as I get my hands on a million euros. Their latest incarnation is a different kind of animal compared to their harsh noise CV, so no more Whorebutcher and Genital Modification for you guys. This time the mood is way more eerie, just like a Small Cruel Party session that went awry, with a couple hundred amplified microsounds requesting immediate headphone listening. Dig in.

01 March 2018

Keith Brewer shows us once more how shit's gets done. As always, Mania's approach is way more freeform than your average power electronics fare, yet it possesses a unique sense of composition behind all the layering of junk metal and sudden burst of anger to be shelved next to the harsh noise crowd. When the chaos is cleared, you can hear the negative space around the edges that builds tension, without a release, even when these Little Pieces Of Violence escalate to their full form. Excellent stuff.

23 February 2018

"You are here for science and the comfort of our heroic soldiers. Your life as leeching parasite on the German Reich has placed you high on the list of undesirables. However, here you will be given the opportunity to be useful to the Fatherland and the honour to be of service to its glorious pursuit of its final victory. You will find that you'll be expected to show your gratitude with your complete and immediate obedience to orders. Hesitation or refusal to perform any task assigned to you will be considered a rebellious act and appropriate punishment will follow."

An eye-opening compilation that showcases the spanish post punk scene, back at a time when the analog keyboards took over. Most of the acts deviate from their respective niche sound and they manage to strain an excess of ideas from their self-confined means. Somehow, the hummability of the tunes remain intact, even when the bands are frenetic or just plain weird. Of course the whole thing sounds dated, but that's exactly its charm.

The esoteric world of electroacoustic composition is graced with this black slab of vinyl. Substunce Sans Scrupule may be a cerebral work, but its million twists and turns have a full hand-on approach, thanks to the extensive use of EMS Synthi. The real magic happens when the disjointed fragments gel together into a cohesive vortex that brings to mind the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, remixed by Hiroshi Hasegawa inside the legendary GRM Studio. This is a unique record which guarantees constant revisiting.

Alvin Lucier composed Criss Cross and Hanover in 2013 and 2015 respectively, but these works could have been born at any time of the octogenarian's career. In the first composition, we watch two oscillating tones drawing patterns at glacial pace, as Stephen O' Malley and Oren Ambarchi create their own Soliloquy For Lilith. On Hanover, the duo is joined by a "big band" of some sorts, with saxes, violin, piano et al, but the results are equally minimal and delicate, offering tiny details akin to dust particles swirling in a beam of light. Heady stuff, with its balls placed right where they should be.

06 February 2018

"An extreme example of a saint who was truly zealous in the mortification of her flesh and senses is Saint Mary Magdalene de'Pazzi.

Born in Florence in 1566 of an aristocratic family, Caterina de'Pazzi was a religiously precocious child. At age 10 she made a vow of perpetual chastity, secretly whipped herself and wore a crown of thorns. Although her parents were unhappy with her behavior, they allowed her to enter a Carmelite convent where she chose the name of the holy harlot, Mary Magdalene. Due to the austerity of her life she soon gained a reputation for outstanding virtue. Frequently she experienced periods of 'rapture' during which she made predictions about the future. She reportedly was able to cure diseases; one procedure she followed was to lick the skin lesions of afflicted nuns, including one who was thought to have leprosy, and to suck the maggots out of skin ulcers.

At age 20 she declared that God had ordered her to eat only bread and water. Because of swelling in her feet she often crawled around the convent on all fours and kissed the feet of the bewildered nuns. Claiming that she was being hounded by devils, she frenetically and publicly whipped her body to chase them away and threw herself naked on thorn bushes until she was covered with blood. She burned her skin with hot wax and cajoled the novices in the convent to whip her and to step on her mouth.

At about age 37, emaciated and racked with coughing and pain, she took to her bed and did not leave it until she died four years later in 1607. Her painful gums were so badly infected that she could not bear to close her jaw, until her teeth fell out, one by one. Her body was covered with putrefying bed sores, but when the sisters offered to move her she warned them off for fear that by touching her body they might experience sexual desires.

Because of her virtuous life, her miraculous healing, her clairvoyance and the presence of a perfumed fragrance that emanated from her corpse, she was beatified by Pope Urban VIII in 1626. She was admitted to the company of the saints by Pope Clement IX, who issued a decree of canonization in 1668. A large statue of her holding a flagellant whip can be seen in her church in Florence where many people from around the world still come to pay her tribute."

(The extract is taken from the book "Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry" by Dr. Armando Favazza)

The exemplary curated second volume of the infamous Epicurian Escapism compilations showcases a diverse roster of artists that serves both as a treat for the initiated and an introduction for the newcomer. If I had to pick only one track, I would get Dieter Müh's Bethlehem, which is an glorious mindfuckery in the vein of Maeror Tri and Unveiled. Luckily I don't have to.

Raw tape music made in the most unsophisticated way. H.Ö.H bypasses any "artistic" associations that usually plague these jams with boring concepts and goes straight into the texture of the ferric tape. Most of the time Palava Kuljettaja is drenched in shortwave signals, but the rudimentary loops and their abrupt stops are the stars of the show. In a different setting, I would be saying that the whole thing sounds like a Conet Project remix by William Burroughs, but Finns do it better anyway.

The follow-up of Mardrömd Dödsström is a bottomless pit of sonic gunk, a sticky unidentified substance poured inside your tape deck. Flugornas Herrar means 'The Lord Of The Flies' in swedish, so you better prepare yourself for some serious occult-ridden death industrial of the highest order. Each track bleeds into the next and you can actually hear their undercurrents beneath the murk, if you're not locked into a random tribal rhythm or a dying synth pattern that managed to escape from the thick textures. These are the outer reaches of psychedelic music, albeit an inwards-looking one.

Cruise (Force The Truth)

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